Context, Characters

Controversies, Consequences

Class 1: Introduction and Brief

Review of Church Histoy

The Reformation

Organizational Information

Please fill out Course Registration forms.

Any Volunteers? We are looking for people to help out with setting up

coffee and refreshments prior to class as well as

assisting with clean up after class.

We are looking for people to sign up to bring

refreshments each week.

The Context of this Class at Grace

4 Pillars

Christian History

Biblical Doctrine

Deeper Discipleship

Compassion/Justice

The Grace Chapel Christian History Series

Turning Points in Church History

A Cloud of Witnesses: History of the Early Church

Christian History in America

The Reformation

Major Topics of the Course Review of Church History

Medieval Christianity

The World in 1500

Martin Luther and the German Reformation

Huldrich Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation

Fires of Radicalism – The Anabaptist Challenge

John Calvin – Genevan Crucible

The Huguenots and the Reformation in France

Global Awareness Week

The Netherlands – Reform and Reaction

7 Wives and one Church – Reformation England and Scotland

The Catholic Reformation – Toward the Council of Trent

The Catholic Reformation – Toward a Global Church

Legacies and continuing controversies

Organizational Principles Use the latest scholarship from both secular and Christian

sources to examine Reformation History.

Make use of Primary Source documents to illustrate key aspects of that history.

Combine lecture with small and large group discussion of key ideas.

Use a Biblical world view consistent with the Grace Chapel statement of faith to critically examine major themes and events in the Reformation.

Suggest practical application of this material in our lives as believers and citizens of two kingdoms.

Class 1 Goals

Introduce the structure and mechanics of the

class.

Identify the prior knowledge of the class about

The Reformation.

Review the major trends and themes of Church

History

Opening Questions/Pretest:

How would you define The Reformation?

What importance does it have for today?

Can you identify the following people who

reshaped the world during the era of the

Reformation?

Were they living “On Mission”?

“The Monarch was . . . king because he was king, not

because he was liege of his nation’s estates, charged with . . .

responsibilities to his vassals, and subject to the church’s law.

This meant that the church . . . had to be reduced to a

national establishment, an office of the state, or a mere social

institution. This was the principal reason, after all for the

success of the Reformation, which flourished only where it

served the interests of the secular state in its rebellion

against the customs and laws of Christendom, and in its

campaign against the autonomy of the church within its

territories.”

David Bentley Hart Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and

Its Fashionable Enemies. p. 90.

Interpreting the Reformation [The Protestant Reformation] “occurred in a context of total

social and economic change. Indeed, the age that is called the Reformation witnessed the shattering not just of the religious status quo but also of the secular aspects of society. The Reorganization of medieval Europe that resulted produced the fabric of life as we know it today.” Eugene Blake

The Reformation is the indigenization of Christianity in Northern Europe.

The Protestant Reformation launched the Dangerous Idea the each individual has the right and responsibility to interpret the Bible for themselves. - Alister McGrath

Interpreting the Reformation II

[The Reformation] is a story of fragmentation. . . . European

Christians rethought what it meant to be a Christian, what a

Christian place of worship should look like, what the

relationship between things made by human hands and

worship was to be, and how God was to be present in a

world in which his presence was no longer taken for granted,

in a world in which God might be absent in this place, in this

community, in that place, among those Europeans.” Lee

Palmer Wandel

Interpreting the Reformation III

“The Reformation was a turning point with great significance

for universal history . . . This significance has been described

in terms of desacralization and deritualization, which in the

critique of institutions and hierarchies provided space for

individual self-determination, the internalization of discipline

and the ‘civilizing process.’” – Carter Lindberg

“The study of the Reformation still awaits a Moses who can

lead it through the sea of contemporary polemics between

social and intellectual historians and into a historiography

both mindful and tolerant of all the forces that shape

historical experience.” - Steven Ozment

Considering a Document

Author:

Place and Time:

Prior Knowledge:

Audience:

Reason:

The Main Idea:

Significance:

The First Century of the Faith

Major Events

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus

Pentecost and “Birth of the Church”

The Council of Jerusalem

The missionary journeys of Paul

The fall of Jerusalem

The writing of the New Testament

Major Themes

Rapid expansion of the faith/growing persecution

Separation from Judaism

Development of organizational structure and distinctive “Christian Communities”

The Church in the Roman Empire Major Events

Continued waves of persecution

Writings of the early Church Fathers: esp. St. Augustine

Consolidation of organizational structure and rise of the papacy

The conversion of Constantine

The major church councils.

“Christianization of the Empire” but the “fall” of Rome

Major Themes

Further delineation of doctrine and the canon

Struggles between Church independence and imperial influence

“Cultural Captivity” of the Church

Unity vs. diversity within the Church

The Early Middle Ages Major Events:

The continuation of Eastern Christianity in Constantinople

The emergence of the monastic movement

The rapid expansion of Islam and loss of traditional Christian territory

The coronation of Charlemagne

Conversion of Kievan Rus

Major Themes:

Struggles between “regular” and “secular” Christianity

Development of an “educated” clergy/catechized laeity

“Need” for protection/patronage of the state

Emergence of the concept of “Christendom”

The Late Middle Ages

Major Events

The “Great Schism” between East and West

The Crusades

The bubonic plague

Flowering of Christian art and architecture

New Monastic Movements (Franciscans/Dominicans)

Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas

Major Themes

Maintaining unity in an increasingly diverse church

Power struggles between church and state

Christian “ordering” of place, time, and daily life

Re-acquaintance with “classical learning” from interaction with Muslim Scholars

Next Week

Medieval Christianity